


Judgement

by deathmarkedlove_archivist



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-29
Updated: 2007-01-29
Packaged: 2019-01-31 23:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmarkedlove_archivist/pseuds/deathmarkedlove_archivist
Summary: Post Villains. A version of Spike's challenge in Africa. PG-13





	Judgement

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Hils, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Death-Marked Love](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Death-Marked_Love). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the Death-Marked Love collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/deathmarkedlove/profile).

“Done.” 

At the demon’s word, Spike relaxed slightly for the first time in days. Soon, he’d have what he wanted. Be back to what he had been. No more remorse, no more pain, no more CHIP. If the challenge finished him off, so be it. Falling into dust was better than having Buffy’s pleas continuously ringing in his ears despite his best efforts to smother them with anger

He violently shoved away the image of her bruised, tear-stained face and said hoarsely, “So, when’s this challenge start?”

The demon nodded toward the entrance of its cave. “Walk out and keep going.”

Spike frowned. “Then what?”

“Does it matter? You said you’d do anything.” The shadowy visage moved in what might have been a smile. “You’ll know when you see it.”

Oracle types were all the same. Naturally, they couldn’t just tell him what the sodding challenge was. Still, Lurky was right. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, he couldn’t go on this way. With a sharp nod, Spike exited the cave and walked into the night.

The cave's surroundings had changed. Instead of the desert and village, he stood on an endless grassland without hill or tree or any sort of landmark visible under the starlit sky. He paused a moment, startled, but then walked forward.

Travelling wasn't difficult: nothing jumped out at him or even blocked his way. There was only the grass, reaching uniformly to the middle of his thighs without flower or seed pod. When he looked back, Spike saw that the track he must have made had closed up as if he had never been. He seized a clump of the grass and pulled. It came out easily enough, but it was so thick and so uniform that he’d have to yank it out by the double-armful to make any sort of mark.

After several hours of uneventful walking, he came to a halt, deciding he'd had enough. The silence pressed in on him. No bird-song, or insect drone, or even wind stirring the omnipresent grass. He could hear Buffy crying out though, hear **that** quite clearly, hear her sobbing inside his head.

“All right!” Spike shouted furiously, his voice strange in the utter silence. “I’m here, so quit mucking about! Let’s have it over one way or another!”

“Ok.”

He whirled about at the calm voice that sounded directly behind him. Then, he looked up.

_Oh, balls._

The demon was huge, at least 7 feet tall with horns sprouting from either side of his head and looking as if he’d been constructed from lumps of granite.

This was it, apparently. The demon looked entirely capable of crushing him with one punch. That was fine. He, Spike, was still the Big Bad, still a warrior who liked nothing better than a good fight. Death and glory and sod all else, right?

_Like love. Who needed that?_

“Right then,” he said, tightly. “Let’s get down to it.” He moved smoothly into a fighting crouch. If his head was crushed, he wouldn’t feel the bones of the Slayer’s wrists grate under his hands, wouldn’t see her curl up in pain.

The demon shook his massive head. “Nah. Let’s not and say we did.”

Spike stayed crouched for a moment before seeing that his supposed opponent seemed to mean it. He looked completely relaxed, huge hands comfortably at his sides.

“What's this about? I thought you were my challenge!”

“I know,” came the apologetic answer. “Change of plan. Paperwork messed up. You know how it goes.” He shrugged. “But it’s your lucky day because it means we’re just gonna give you what you want. That’s good, isn’t it? I mean how often does that happen? Oh,” one hand extended. “The name’s Skip, by the way. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Spike’s head was starting to spin and before he knew what he was doing, his hand was in the demon’s _Skip’s?_ iron clasp.

“But the other…”

“Oh, he’s not in charge. I'm not either, but he’s more not in charge than I am. Anyway,” Skip said briskly. “You don’t need to worry about that. Or about anything more, really, since you’re getting your wish to go back to being what you were.”

He stepped aside and gestured, and Spike saw that the landscape had changed, a path of softly glowing stones opening beyond Skip. Drusilla stood at the head of the path, her familiar, wicked smile on her face. A few feet beyond her, the path plunged into darkness.

“Spike,” she said softly and held out her hand to him, fingers beckoning. “How I’ve missed you.”

“Dru?” he whispered unbelieving.

“Come to me, my sweet. We’ll make the stars sing and bleed.”

“What the hell kind of trick is this?” Spike asked furiously.

Skip shrugged. “No trick. All you have to do is go with your friend there, and you’ll step back into your old life. The chip won’t work, and you won’t have any feelings for the Slayer or her friends. Well, the traditional hatred, of course, but nothing more.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that’s it,” he said flatly. “That’s all that has to happen.”

“Why not?” the demon asked. “Let me be frank here, Spike. Well, actually, I can’t. I’m Skip.” He paused. “Get it? Can’t be Frank because I’m Skip?”

“You’re a laugh riot, you are,” Spike gritted.

“Darn,” Skip said disappointedly. “I’ve been working on that one. Trying to get a warmer touch. Anyhow. You’re just one not-very-important vampire with one not-very-important wish. It’s not like you’re a big frog in this particular pond. So go with Drusilla. Be happy.”

He took a hesitant step forward as Dru held out both hands and beamed, tongue running over her red lips. Could this really be all there was to it? He felt…flat…somehow. Unsatisfied. But that would fade, surely, when he was in his dark love’s arms again. He’d be at peace. Wouldn’t he?

Another step, and he began to relax. It would be all right. He’d go back to what he was, the Big Bad. William the Bloody. It would be a relief. He’d have a new reign of terror, someplace other than Sunnydale.

“Or,” Skip said thoughtfully, “You could go **that** way.”

Spike’s head jerked to the right where another path had appeared. It was the same as the first, a few feet of shining stones that ended in darkness, but at the head of this path stood Tara, her face sad and still.

“Bloody hell! I knew there was a catch,” he snarled.

Skip held up his hands placatingly. “No catch. It’s just a rule that we always have to offer a choice. No pressure either way. You do what you want.”

“Thanks so much,” he sneered. “I’ll do that.”

He took another step toward Drusilla, then reluctantly stopped again to face the other path. “What are you doing here?” he asked Tara. “Why’d they pick you to show what’s undoubtedly the ‘right’ way to go? You’re not anything to me. Why not Buffy? Or Dawn?”

“That’s the point,” she said softly. “If you choose this way, there’s no guarantee of reward. Besides Buffy and Dawn are…busy.”

“Tara’s a volunteer,” Skip added. “And we’re very glad to have her.”

Tara smiled faintly, but her eyes were still grave.

“Spike,” Drusilla called. “Your princess is waiting. She wants to give you a kiss.”

“In a minute, Pet,” he said absently, still watching Tara and trying to shake the feeling of dread growing inside him. “Look here. Is this some kind of witch thing? Are you astral traveling or what?”

She shook her head. “I’m dead, Spike. I belong here now.”

“Dead,” he said, stunned. Even with everything else that had been going on, he would have heard if something happened to her, he was sure. Which meant whatever it was had occurred in the few days since he left. “How?” he demanded harshly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Drusilla said, a thread of impatience in her voice. “None of it does, Love. They’re humans. Animals. Come to me, and forget them.”

Forget. It would be such a relief to forget all of it, to forget guilt and pain and loving someone who didn’t care. Nothing was stopping him.

“Tell me,” he said in a ragged voice.

“Warren,” Tara said. “He killed me by mistake while he was trying to shoot Buffy. He didn’t even know it happened - at least, not to begin with.” She looked down at her feet.

Horror was sweeping over him in waves. “But he didn’t hit Buffy? She's all right?”

“He did hit her,” she corrected. “Buffy would have died if Willow hadn’t used magic to save her.”

The Slayer’d had a bad few days of it all around, he thought dazedly. First him and now this. Still, she hadn’t died, so he could just go now, except…

“I thought Willow wasn’t supposed to be using magic.” He hadn’t planned to say anything. The words came out without any input from his brain.

“She’s not.”

He ground his teeth in frustration at the short answers. “Have I got to drag this out of you a bit at the time? What’s happened?”

Tara looked past him at Skip.

“Sorry,” the large demon said apologetically. “We didn’t want to delay you getting back with Drusilla. But since you’re interested, Willow killed Warren and is trying to kill the other two.”

Spike relaxed slightly. “So? It’s nothing to me if she kills those prats.”

He was actually quite pleased with the concept. If not for the Wanker's club and their damned cameras, Buffy wouldn’t have known about his tryst with Anya, and then the…other things…wouldn’t have happened.

“Buffy’s protecting Jonathan and Andrew,” Tara murmured. “And it’s not just them. Willow’s gone mad from pain and magic. She doesn’t care who she hurts anymore. She’s trying to end the world.”

Which meant Buffy was going to go up against her oldest, closest friend. He saw her in his mind’s eye, how she must look as she prepared for the fight, the jaw and lips tight-set against the pain to come, the shadowed, tired eyes. There was a good chance Willow would kill her since Tara had been the only other source of magic. And even if she won, and winning involved killing the witch….

“Send me back.” Again, the words came out of him without conscious permission from his brain, which was busy telling him he was being ridiculous. What could he do for Buffy? He didn’t have any magic. He couldn’t fight Willow without his head blowing up. Not to mention, he had to be the last person Buffy wanted to see right now.

_…Spike, please. I’m hurt…._

None of it mattered. The truth was, he couldn’t not be there. Couldn’t not take the chance that he would be able to help in some way. Couldn’t not be by her side.

“Spike!”

He refused to look at Drusilla, kept his gaze on Skip instead. “Put me back in Sunnydale. Put me with the Slayer.”

Skip shook his head. “Sorry, no can do. This is the place of challenge. You can’t leave without going through it.”

“Sod the challenge! I don’t want to be what I was, all right? I’ll stay as I am. I’ve learned my bloody lesson.”

“There’s only two ways out of here for you,” Skip said, voice friendly but firm. “The path back to your old life, or the second way.” With that, he was gone. Between one blink and the next, Skip wasn’t there anymore.

He already knew where one path ended. Growling in fury, Spike stalked up to Tara. “If I go this way, will I be able to help Buffy? What lies at the end of it?”

“Judgment.”

He shook his head. “What does that mean?”

“It means what it means. If you walk this path, you will be judged.”

“Fine, I’ll be judged. Then what?”

Tara shrugged. “It depends on what’s decided.”

“Damn you, that’s no answer! How the hell do you expect me to….”

Her face and voice went cold. “No one **expects** you to do anything, Spike. And no one owes you anything. You have a choice. Go with Drusilla or come with me. It’s up to you.”

Every instinct screamed to go with Dru. He’d left Sunnydale with the full intention of losing the chip and these unwanted feelings of remorse and guilt and love. Losing the sound of Buffy’s head cracking against the side of the tub. Losing the sight of her betrayed, pain-filled eyes.

Betrayal. Angel, Riley, Giles, himself, even Willow perhaps, all turning on and/or abandoning the Slayer. He didn’t want to care. If he lost the chip, he wouldn’t anymore, he was sure. It was the chip making him feel this way. Without the chip he’d be free. He had only to walk the first path…

It wasn’t as if Buffy would care what he did. She’d go on whether he was there or not. She’d gotten up from the bathroom floor and fought Warren. She’d gotten up from being shot and was getting ready to fight Willow. If she survived, she’d keep on getting up and doing what she had to do until something killed her. Just as she’d clawed herself out of her grave.

But she’d allowed him to take her poor battered hands, had trusted him enough to let him help, and there might be a way he could help again…

Spike threw back his head, and a howl tore from his throat. It went on and on, echoing across the silent veldt in a wild ululation of anguish and fury and despair. At last, throat raw and body shaking, he lowered his head.

Both women watched him quietly, neither moving from the path she guarded. He looked at Drusilla, his first love, his dark princess, the raven mass of hair over her shoulders, the white skin, the blood-red lips. She’d welcome him. It would be safe.

“I’m not coming with you, Pet.”

“I know.”

He was startled. Her voice was calm and sure, her face clear and lucid, and she smiled at little at his bafflement. “You want what you’ve always wanted since the night I found you. Something glowing and glistening. Something effulgent. Be careful, my William.”

The decision he had made brought him no peace in his decision, and his eyes burned with unshed tears as he started toward the path Tara guarded.

“Spike.” Drusilla’s voice whispered in his ear although she hadn’t moved from her position. “When the witch turned wicked, the Slayer tried to take Little Sister to you for safety.”

He froze. Even after what had happened, Buffy had trusted him to guard Dawn? The tiniest sliver of hope touched Spike’s heart, and he began to believe that there might be a way to return from this or at least a way to move on.

“Thanks, Love,” he said softly.

Her words allowed him to walk steadily until he stood before Tara.

“I’m ready.”

She nodded silently and gestured for him to precede her down the path.

The darkness was absolute even to his enhanced vision. The only illumination came from the glowing stones and was only strong enough to let him see the witch who paced him, white draperies flowing.

To his surprise, even in the midst of his own overwhelming misery, he felt a thread of regret for her death. Tara had always been nice to him in her quiet way, accepting him for what he was and not throwing it into his face. He hoped it had been quick, that she hadn’t suffered.

“You’re all right, then?” he said abruptly.

She looked over at him and broke into a sweet smile. “I’m fine, Spike. Thank you.”

He looked away. “Yeah. When’s this judging start? I need to get back to Sunnydale.”

“Time passes differently here than in the world.”

“What does that mean? They could already be fighting? Look…”

“It means,” she interrupted gravely. “That you can’t worry about Buffy right now. You need to worry about this.”

“Worry about what?” Spike said irritably. “I don’t know what this is. I don’t even know where we’re going or who the bloody judges are.”

“We’re here. And so are they.”

Between one step and the next, he went from smooth stones to gritty sand. The starlit desert opened out again in a wide vista, but his path was still clearly delineated.

His vampire senses understood before his brain could register anything more than the awareness of two lines of people. Spike was in vamp face without consciously making the change, and the ones who stood nearest him shifted in instinctive response.

The girl to his left was well over six feet tall. Her shoulders strained at the lace-up shirt she wore and she carried a blacksmith’s hammer in one large hand.

Directly across from her, an Arabic girl stood, small but fierce, with flashing black eyes and a curved scimitar in her belt.

Spike turned cold inside as he let his eyes travel as far down the lines of women as he could see. Tall and short, plain and pretty, with clothes that reflected their origins and the times when they had lived.

The Slayers. All of them.

The silence was deafening. None of them spoke or even moved that he could tell. They only watched him, the weight of their gazes almost tangible. Swallowing, he looked at Tara, and she met his gaze expressionlessly.

“There are only two ways: forward or back.”

He looked over his shoulder to see that the path still glowed behind him. He could, indeed, go back, to where he was sure that Drusilla was waiting. Back to a life where it wouldn’t matter whether Buffy died or loved him. Back to a life where he would be content as the monster he had been, no longer a prisoner of his addiction.

Against all of those issues, the fact that Buffy still trusted him to guard Dawn shouldn’t even be a consideration. Certainly, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. And yet…

Spike faced forward again, looking down the line of Slayers. At the far end, he could barely see a flickering red glow like the light of a bonfire. What it meant, he didn’t know. But he would find out. Setting his jaw, he stepped forward.

He was braced against the anticipation of pain. All of the Slayers carried weapons of some sort, and he anticipated reaching the end of their gauntlet a bloody, broken lump if he reached it at all. But they remained more statues than women, making Spike wish that they would move in some way even if it were to attack. The silence was complete - he couldn’t even hear Tara’s steps although he knew she walked behind him - and despite the knowledge that he had made this choice freely, despite his worry over Buffy, and the regret over what had happened, he grew angry.

They were weighing him in some cosmic balance and no doubt finding him wanting, just as everyone had, from his human days until now. It didn’t matter to them that he’d made the ‘right’ choice, that he’d tried his best to help Buffy, just as it had never mattered to Buffy herself. He was a soulless evil thing to them, just as he was to her.

And who were they, after all? Silly bints who set themselves up over everyone else. Thought that being Called let them lord it over the rest. Damned arrogant bitches. Well, they might judge him, but they wouldn’t cow him. Let them do their worst.

He had looked straight ahead until that point, but with a sneer, Spike deliberately met the eyes of one of the Slayers, a dainty Miss in her rose-sprigged muslin and lace collar, long brown hair in ringlets down her back.

Probably had one of the servants do her Slaying, he thought, looking into her wide, brown eyes.

_…she was collapsed against the altar, the bones in both legs shattered, her Watcher’s dead body close by. The demons laughed as they advanced, knowing she was hurt too badly to continue the fight. And tired, so tired, the weariness almost greater than the pain. With a final desperate lunge, she seized the torch and thrust it into the holy oil that had spilled during the fight. The flames caught, shot up, roaring over the demons and making them scream, even as the fire caught her in its warm embrace…_

He staggered, shaking his head to banish the vision. The Slayer – somehow, he knew her name was Madeline, that she’d had a dog named Rosie and that she’d desperately wanted to be a pirate when she was 10 – looked away, the tears on her face visible in the starlit night. The Slayer next to her, an Amerindian girl in fringed shirt and jeans, put a hand on her sister’s arm.

Spike moved forward once more, careful not to meet any more gazes, but he remained achingly aware of them, of their youth, of the way their lives had changed at Calling, of the terror they had felt at their deaths. As Buffy must have been terrified when she jumped from the tower, or faced the Master, or went against Angelus.

He didn’t need or want to know how they’d died, only that it had happened, that each of them had at last gone up against something that had been too powerful, or perhaps against something that she’d simply lacked the will to fight. Something that had triggered the death wish he had always known the Slayers carried.

_The question isn’t how’d I win. The question is why’d they lose._

As he reached the end of the path, he realized that he knew the Slayer on the left. Kendra, who had fought by Buffy’s side when she came for Angel, and whom Drusilla had finally killed. She had lacked Buffy’s fire, he remembered, but she’d been a good enough fighter. She shook her head as he passed, her face a mixture of annoyance and resignation, as if his presence here was no more than she expected but had hoped wouldn't happen.

Spike didn’t know how to respond, or even if he should, so he said nothing and emerged onto a large, open patch of sand, dominated by a bonfire. The muscles in his shoulders knotted at the sight of the three figures that stood waiting for him.

He’d known they had to be there, had watched for them as he walked the gauntlet, but the sight of Nikki and the Chinese Slayer, whose name he’d never known, still shook him. He was glad he’d left the duster he’d taken from Nikki’s corpse behind. Their faces were remote and cold, the torches they held providing additional illumination for their companion.

At the sight of her, Spike clamped down with everything he had to keep his features from shifting again to vampiric, which he knew would be deadly. He was maddened, enthralled, and achingly aroused. Everything that had obsessed him from the time Angelus first spoke the word ‘Slayer’, everything that had drawn him to seek out the others, that had screamed to him from Buffy, was contained in one wild-haired figure. Her face was smeared with paint, her hair dark and matted, her eyes ancient.

“Sineya,” Tara said, as she stepped around him, her voice jarring after the long silence although she spoke in her usual soft tones. She took up a position to the side, between him and the others. “Created by shaman in times forgotten and later abandoned by her people. The First of the Slayers, the essence of them all.”

“You’ve got demon in you,” he said harshly, fury rising as he remembered countless insults. “I hear ‘evil thing’ morning till night and it turns out you’ve got some of it yourself. Nice job with the cover-up, Pet.”

Spike heard gasps from behind him and knew this wasn’t the smartest way to act before somebody who was going to judge him, but he’d had enough. He was furious and sick of it all, and even the knowledge that he might die here and not be able to reach Buffy couldn’t move him.

However, Sineya didn’t seem bothered by his words or at least not enough to change her expression. Instead, she nodded toward Tara who asked formally, “Why have you come here?”

Spike shook his head. “I’m not mucking about with this. You know why I’m here. I’ll take whatever bloody punishment you hand out, but keep in mind that I’m trying to get back to where I can help your Slayer before she gets herself killed.”

“You want to help the Slayer,” the Chinese Slayer said in a high soft voice, her mouth twisted. Her words were some Chinese dialect, but Spike understood her, as he suspected, he would understand them all if they spoke. “As you’ve helped us before?”

“Yeah, I do want to help her.” He met her gaze without flinching. “You want me to apologize for what happened between us? Go on my knees and beg forgiveness? Sorry, Love. Not gonna happen. Even if I did, you’d know it wasn’t true if you’re as mystic as you say you are. We had a fair fight, you and I.” He tapped the scar that bisected his eyebrow. “Could have as easily gone the other way.”

“Why?”

The voice was guttural, wrenched from a throat unused to speech. Sineya moved forward until she stood only a few feet away, surrounding him with an odor that was musky yet not unpleasant.

“Why what?” Spike asked, having to fight to maintain his equilibrium. She made him dizzy, made him…yearn. “Why do I want to help Buffy?”

She shook her head, scowling, fighting for the words, not seeming to want to go through Tara. “You,” she said finally and shoved lightly at his shoulder, rocking him almost off his feet. “Slayers.” She tapped her own chest, then spread her hands. “Why?”

“Why do I want to fight the Slayers?”

At her nod, he tried to think. He didn’t spend a lot of time questioning himself – that was for poufs like Angel – and he had never really considered his obsession with the Slayers. Angelus had first brought them up as a threat, but Spike had been fascinated, dredging up every story his grandsire could recall, then seeking others who had survived encounters with or even seen a Slayer.

“Simple enough,” Nikki said coldly, interrupting his thoughts. “You wanted to hurt us. Drag us down to your level.”

His anger flared. “No need to set yourself up so high and mighty, bitch. There’s demon in you as well as me. Yes, I wanted to fight you. You had the other demons running scared, so if I bested you, it meant something. But I didn’t drag you anywhere. Not by fighting you, not by loving Buffy, no matter what you or she might think.”

White teeth flashed in something between a smile and a snarl. “You didn’t just want to fight. You wanted to kill. Make it so we weren’t there anymore.”

“As you want to kill my kind,” he grated, fury continuing to rise. What would it be like to fight her here in this limbo world? Could he defeat her again? Would the others join in? If so, it would be…his ending, keeping him from getting to Buffy. With difficulty, he made himself turn away from Nikki to face the First Slayer once more. “Look,” he said, trying to keep hold of his temper. “We can have fun calling me names all day, but it won’t change anything. I did what I did, but I want to help Buffy, now. I’m asking you to set it up so I can. I accept your judgment, all right?”

She regarded him impassively for a moment, then caught his chin in a grip like a vise. “You,” she said again. “Slayers. Why?”

Her eyes were obsidian searchlights, shining pitilessly into the depths of his mind, calling up long-forgotten memories:

…being fired by poetry that spoke of the possibility of greatness, knowing there was something he needed to say or do but never finding the words or actions

…longing for something neither William nor Spike could ever put a name to, something just out of reach

…the sense of recognition when Angelus spoke of the Slayers, recognition that increased when he saw first the Chinese Slayer, then Nikki, and came crashing down when he saw Buffy dancing at the Bronze.

…the sense of pleasure, of rightness, when everything was clear and uncluttered. “I’m a superhero too.”

…the desperate need to join, to belong, to become that had led inexorably to the horrible night in the Summers’ bathroom

“Because,” Spike choked. “It’s…it’s what I want to be.”

Sineya nodded. “Done,” she said. “Judgment rendered.”

And with that, her teeth were in his throat.

It wasn’t anything like his first turning. William had been startled by Drusilla’s vampire features, hadn’t understood what was happening, hadn’t had the ability to fight what she did to him. By the time bafflement had become fear, the pain of her bite had shifted to pleasure and there had only been a sweet languor as they sank together to the ground.

Sineya bit deeply into his jugular, and Spike’s demon surged to the fore as pain raced through him as his blood began to spill on the desert sand. In the past, human face or vamp, he had remained Spike, always able to quip or sneer, but now the demon overwhelmed him.

He felt as if he shattered into pieces, that which was himself, that had made him Spike, drifting away helplessly, while he watched tweed-clad William, glasses askew, struggle with a huge gray beast.

“Fight it,” Tara’s voice whispered in his mind. “Fight it, Spike. Hold to what you are, to what you can be. Hold to what’s real.”

What he could be? What was that? He didn’t know what real was anymore. Was anything? Did it matter?

_The softest brush of lips….  
…What you did, for me and Dawn, that was real… _

With a howl of defiance, Spike reached for what he’d wanted for so long without knowing, pulled his own image, clad in black t-shirt and jeans and duster, up from the depths and used it to swat aside both William and the demon. He was neither. He was both. He was Spike and would remain so.

Slowly, the demon receded and he was himself again, swaying as the desert night spun around him, Sineya’s grip the only thing holding him up. Even as he became aware of his surroundings again, she released him and he slid weakly to his knees.

He began to pitch forward onto sand that was dark with his blood, but other hands held him up upright. Blearily, he saw that Nikki and the Chinese Slayer stood on either side of him holding him firmly by the shoulders.

A trick. It had all been a trick. They didn’t want him. Nobody did, from Cecily to Buffy. He would die as he had lived these last few years. Useless. Ineffective. Unloved.

“Don’t care!” he slurred, summoning the last of his fury despite the tears that rolled down his face. “Don’t care, you hear? ‘Bout you…’bout anybody!”

“Shh, child. Shh.”

Sineya knelt in front of him, and his eyes widened, as one long nail drew across her wrist and blood began to trickle from the wound.

“Drink,” she said, raising it to his lips. “Drink and become.”

If the blood of a Slayer was a powerful aphrodisiac, the blood of the First was lightning. It blazed through him like a bonfire, ripping through his veins, charring him from the inside out. The remnants of the demon rose up in anger, but new strength poured into him, and it was routed without thought. The chip tried to fire as he drew ever harder at her wrist, but the new blood surrounded it, flooded it, and it died without so much as a flicker.

He was harder than he’d ever been, feeling as if he were about to burst from his jeans, and when Sineya’s free hand closed around his shrouded erection, he came explosively with a shout.

As he swayed from a climax that had verged on painful, his shoulders were released, and Sineya pulled her hand away. Dizzily, he fell backwards…

…onto the grass of a very familiar cemetery, the sunlight warm on his face.

  
The End


End file.
